


Cable-knit

by RosiePaw



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, I know I didn't tag this as werewolf!John.  If you're a lycanthropophobe, my apologies.  But I wanted to indulge myself in leading the reader along for a bit, so I did.</p></blockquote>





	Cable-knit

John was certain he had never seen the cable-knit jumper laid out on his bed before. There was something familiar about the yellowish-brown colour, though. And, when he picked it up, the scent. Reminiscent of dog, but not quite. More like – he sniffed again – wolf? Wolves were hardly common in London, except of course for... Oh. Right. That explained the colour as well.

Sherlock was in the kitchen, doing something with a bottle of ammonia, a disembowelled alarm clock and what appeared to be piles of different kinds of seeds.

"Sherlock, there’s a jumper on my bed that was apparently made from my own fur."

"You shed when you’re going through a change. A lot."

"It’s a physically stressful experience," John protested.

"I didn’t say you shed an _unusual_ amount, John. Only that it was fairly voluminous. So I collected it and contacted a woman in Derby who spins mixtures of dog fur and wool into yarn. She was willing to branch out into wolf fur. The results were of sufficient quality that I paid someone else to knit the jumper, which I then left on your bed."

"Right. That explains ‘how’ well enough. But... _why_?"

Sherlock paused, actually looking at John for the first time. "You don’t like it."

"Hang on, I didn’t say I didn’t like it. In fact, thank you – it’s certainly a, ah, unique and thoughtful gift. I’m just puzzled as to what occasioned it."

"You wear jumpers a lot. This suggested that you like them, which further suggested that you might like this one. You don’t have to wear if it you don’t. Give it to Oxfam." Sherlock shrugged and resumed pipetting ammonia onto the seeds.

John considered the matter. There was something faintly repulsive about the idea of giving away an item of clothing made from part of his own body to be worn by some random stranger. More importantly, Sherlock’s apparent indifference to the fate of the jumper was hardly consistent with the effort he had taken to get it made, and he had yet to answer John’s question as to his motivation.

In fact, John was fairly sure that Sherlock had, in a Sherlockish way, been hurt that John had even asked.

John didn’t attempt to pursue the discussion further – really, there would be no point – but from time to time, he did wear the jumper. It was comfortable and warm, its one drawback being that when wet, it smelt a bit like wet wolf.

More significantly, and somewhat to John’s surprise, he found that he enjoyed wearing it. It made him feel as if he were getting away with something – hiding in plain sight, flaunting his true nature in front of people who were simply too unimaginative to understand what they were seeing. When a nurse at the clinic commented that the jumper suited him, John was hard put not to laugh. _Of course_ it did.

John wondered if Sherlock’s attitude towards the rest of humanity was rubbing off on him.

***

 _Corpse in rubbish bin. Come immediately. SH_

John, on the other side of London from the address Sherlock gave, heaved a long-suffering sigh and set about returning the bread and milk to the appropriate shelves in the Tesco’s before leaving. This right here, _this_ was why they never had any groceries in the flat.

By the time he arrived at the crime scene, Sherlock was peering into the bin and poking at the contents with every appearance of fascination and delight. The Yarders were watching from a safe distance and didn’t seem to hear John coming up behind them.

"Freak’s got himself a new scarf to match his boyfriend’s jumper," observed Donovan.

John opened his mouth to utter a reflexive, "Not his boyfriend," but instead heard himself say, "New scarf?"

He was pleased to see Donovan visibly startle.

He continued on to the bin. The corpse had apparently been there some days before discovery. John, a battlefield veteran, could barely avoid gagging at the smell, but Sherlock didn’t seem bothered by it. He had not, for example, pulled his scarf up over his nose and mouth.

John took a moment to study the scarf. It was cable-knit and certainly the same colour as the jumper, although he thought the yarn might be a finer weight.

Then Sherlock asked him a question about blood and coagulation rates and the marks on the corpse, and John forgot about Sherlock’s scarf and his own jumper. For the moment.

***

John meant to ask about the scarf when they got home, but they were both tired. There’d been a string of odd cases in the last week. One of the Yarders had wondered if this could be explained by a full moon, which made John laugh and Sherlock explain contemptuously that the moon wouldn’t be full for another two nights.

When they got home, they both went straight to their separate beds.

The next night, the moon was close enough to full to make John’s skin itch. He changed as soon as it was dark, in the privacy of his own room as usual. When he came down the stairs, all fur and fangs, claws and lean muscle, Sherlock was waiting, wrapped in his coat with the scarf around his throat.

John’s nostrils flared. His sense of smell was far keener in this form. The scent of his own fur lying next to Sherlock’s skin, warmed by Sherlock’s body heat, momentarily overwhelmed any other sensations. He took a step towards Sherlock – another step...

And then Sherlock held out collar, waiting for John to dip his head to accept it.

The inconvenient part of being a werewolf in London was that if he went roaming around on his own, it was all too common for people to call the LACC (if they were concerned about his welfare) or the police (if they were concerned about their own). A wolf with a collar, a leash and a cooperative human, on the other hand, could go where he liked and be taken for nothing more unusual than a large dog. And Sherlock, who couldn’t be arsed to do the shopping or the laundry, _was_ cooperative in this matter. John suspected he enjoyed the somewhat illicit thrill of walking the dark streets with a wolf at his side.

Once they reached Regent’s Park, the leash came off and John could _run_. (Sherlock, occasionally summonsed for letting "his dog" run loose, shrugged the matter off. John wondered if Mycroft was making the summonses vanish off the records but when he tried to ask, Mycroft only replied, "So much easier than drug charges.")

Sometimes Sherlock ran with John for awhile, trying to keep up. Always failing, of course. John was honest enough to admit to himself that he enjoyed the turnabout, but he also appreciated Sherlock’s uncharacteristically good sportsmanship in making the effort. When he himself began to tire, he’d hunt Sherlock down. John might find him walking about, following paths apparent only to himself, or simply staring at the sky, lost in thought.

Some nights they stayed in Regent’s Park. Other nights they’d range as far as Hyde Park or even Hampstead Heath. Denizens of the streets who looked at Sherlock and thought, "Easy mark," looked at John and thought again.

To be honest, Sherlock wasn’t the _only_ one who liked this part of it.

They’d sleep in late the next day, do it all again the next night. Usually John could get three or four nights out of a full moon. Once during a spell of exceptionally clear weather during the long nights of midwinter, he’d gotten five.

John got four nights out of this particular full moon. Sherlock wore the fur-wool scarf every night.

***

The morning after the last night of the full moon, John awoke to the sun streaming in through his windows. He padded downstairs, still yawning. No Sherlock in sight and the bedroom door was closed, but Sherlock’s coat was still flung across the sofa. The John-coloured scarf lay curved across the coat, and John was momentarily distracted from his quest for tea.

The scarf felt so soft when he picked it up that, unthinking, he stroked it across his cheek. Mingled scents rose up from the fur-wool, Sherlock’s scent and his own, and he turned his head to bury his nose in the knit.

He couldn’t have said how long he’d been standing there when some small noise behind him caught his attention. Sherlock stood there, watching. Observing.

"Would you have rather had a scarf than a jumper?" he asked John. "You wear jumpers more often, so that’s what I had made, but there’s plenty of fur. Especially at this time of month."

John’s first thought was to point out that if Sherlock had issues with the (admittedly noticeable) amount of fur lying about the flat, he could damn well do the hoovering for a change.

His second – or rather his second, third and fourth – was that he was being snappish because he was embarrassed, that his embarrassment was not Sherlock’s fault and that maybe he ought to reassure Sherlock that the jumper was fine, he loved the jumper?

What he actually said was, "Which came first, the jumper or the scarf?"

Sherlock blinked. Then he almost smiled. "Well done, John. The scarf. I over-estimated the amount of raw material necessary for the project, so I commissioned the jumper as well."

"Isn’t that rather like over-estimating how much milk you’ll need for a week and buying a month’s worth instead?"

Sherlock looked blank, probably because he couldn’t imagine buying milk in the first place.

"Never mind, it’s all fine. And I _do_ like the jumper. But why...?" He didn’t quite know how to say it. Why my fur? Why part of _me_?

"It’s warmer," said Sherlock.

Ah, that explained it. Sherlock must have researched the relative warmth of various materials suitable for scarves, concluded that wolf fur was the best for the job and, well, John _was_ the most convenient source.

"Not wolf fur in general." Sherlock was apparently reading his mind now. "Your fur." He looked away from John. "It feels warmer." There was a touch of defiance in that last statement.

"You realize that the additional warmth is probably psychological in origin?" John asked gently.

"So’s the pain in your leg. That doesn’t keep you from using a cane when it gets bad."

"Fair enough. Do you want some tea?"

Sherlock shrugged, which meant that he’d drink it if John made it. John went into the kitchen, got the kettle going and set out two mugs.

And then Sherlock said from the doorway, "When I came in, you were holding the scarf to your face."

John stilled. He could feel his face heating. But he’d gotten Sherlock to make an admission, and fair was fair. "I like the way, well. The way the scarf smells – like both of us. Another psychological effect, I suppose."

John glanced at his flatmate, not sure whether to expect disdain, puzzlement or perhaps a reassertion of Sherlock’s marital fidelity to his work. Sherlock looked in fact thoughtful. He vanished from the doorway, reappearing with the scarf held to his nose. After a moment, he lowered it.

"John, if you’re making toast as well as tea, I think I should like some."

"Hungry after last night, are you?" said John, and damn, he was flushing again.

But Sherlock smiled, a full smile this time, and wrapped the scarf loosely about his neck.

"Yes," he replied, "I am."

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know I didn't tag this as werewolf!John. If you're a lycanthropophobe, my apologies. But I wanted to indulge myself in leading the reader along for a bit, so I did.


End file.
